Labels

Showing posts with label Purpose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Purpose. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Such a Time as This - Purity 853


Such a Time as This - Purity 853

Purity 853 10/04/2022 Purity 852 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo a streams waterfall, fall foliage, and a sliver of blue sky comes from our a friend who spent the first day of October visiting “The Flume Gorge, at Franconia Notch State Park” in New Hampshire.  I said that I might share more of our friend’s photos and liked this simple waterfall and decided to see where it would lead.   

Well, It’s Tuesday and today I am giving thanks for how the Lord has led my wife, TammyLyn, into her new career as a special education teacher  and how what may have caused others to turn and run has inspired my wife to press into her new role with care, concern, compassion and creativity.

Her first day was yesterday and she reported that there was more than one instance of her students having episodes that needed individual instruction and behavioral coaching. Her students are junior high age but have the mental and emotional capacities of first and second graders and any bump in the road of their regular routine or a conflict to their expectations can result in emotional outbursts and insubordination.

In the aftermath of her first day on the job and in light of these episodes of what I would describe as “meltdowns”, the other staff sheepishly inquired what she thought about her new job choice.  They were pleasantly surprised when TammyLyn assured them that she was excited about her new position and that she didn’t quit easily and had a few ideas of activities she could introduce to the class to keep her students engaged and on task that could possibly help them to reduce their outburst sand help them to learn and grow.   

Where many people would be looking to cut and run, TammyLyn is rushing in to meet needs and to possibly calm the storm.

I am extremely proud of my wife and know that I have been truly blessed to have her as I stand in awe and wonder when I consider her faith and her servant’s heart. Where some may only see a problem to be dealt with and be hardened to find ways to enact measures of control, TammyLyn’s is coming in to share the love of God as a caregiver and teacher who will seek to nourish and encourage her pupils in the ways they should go.   

And I know that TammyLyn’s presence will be calming influence on her co-workers as well, as she will minster to them and lead them to understand the power of love to transform the atmosphere of the places that women of faith walk into.

TammyLyn’s attributes of strength, patience, kindness, intelligence, and creativity are just what her classroom needs and when I consider her path over the last year I can see the Lord’s hand was bringing her to this place at this time, “as if it were meant to be”.  

My wife’s path reminds me of Esther’s story where she “just happened” to be in a position to influence the king of Persia, when her people the Jews, were being faced with persecution and genocide.  In encouraging Esther to be bold and to risk her life by speaking out, her uncle Mordecai wondered:  

Esther 4:14 (NKJV)
14  … Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"  

Of course being a woman of faith in God, Esther chose to act, surrendering herself to God’s will, by saying: 

Esther 4:16 (NKJV)
16  "…so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!"

Esther stepped out of tradition and what was acceptable to do what was right and because God had brought her to that place at that time. 

And likewise my wife, has been brought to this place and time, and is going in to this special needs classroom to represent the Lord and who she is in Christ, by showing her students and co-worker what God’s love looks like outside of the pages of the Bible and the four walls of a church building.  

Like today’s photo, my wife’s path over the last year has been tumultuous and led to more than one fall, but her faith kept her afloat and now she has risen from the depths to breathe again, to find her purpose to love and serve others in a way that only she can, in a place she didn’t see coming, “for such a time as this.”

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse are:

Psalm 139:13,16-17 (NLT2)
13  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. ….16  You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
17  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!

Today’s Bible verses encourages us because they testify of how intimately the Lord knows us and how He has laid out our paths before us and how His thoughts for us are precious.  

Considering my wife’s path, I just have to encourage everyone to seek the Lord and to come to understand just how much He loves you. He created you. He has a plan for you and He encourages you to follow Him to discover and experience it.   

TammyLyn’s story is a testimony of how we are to remain faithful to trust and follow the Lord even though our paths may be uncertain and circumstances can challenge us.  

If we keep walking in the Spirit, seeking the Lord, His presence, wisdom and ways for living, we start on a path where we invite the Lord in our circumstances and make the decision to see what happens when we trust Him.  

Because We have peace with God through our faith in Christ, we are already victorious and free and when we stay grounded in who we are in Christ, we have peace, love, joy no matter what we face. 

And so when we keep walking and talking with God we enter into the potential to see the impossible happen in our lives. We can see God’s divine favor, His grace, blesses our lives. 

So reflect on the awesomeness of God as Creator and Sovereign King, and marvel over that fact that His thoughts are precious and numerous when they consider you. 

 

_____________________________________________

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Five

Discipleship and the Individual – Continues

 

So people called by Jesus learn that they had lived an illusion in their relationship to the world. The illusion is immediacy. It has blocked faith and obedience. Now they know that there can be no unmediated relationships, even in the most intimate ties of their lives, in the blood ties to father and mother, to children, brothers and sisters, in marital love, in historical responsibilities. Ever since Jesus called, there are no longer natural, historical, or experiential unmediated relationships for his disciples. Christ the mediator stands between son and father, between husband and wife, between individual and nation, whether they can recognize him or not. There is no way from us to others than the path through Christ, his word, and our following him. Immediacy is a delusion.

But because any delusion which hides truth from us must be hated, immediacy to the natural given things in life must also be hated, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the mediator. Anytime a community hinders us from coming before Christ as a single individual, anytime a community lays claim to immediacy, it must be hated for Christ’s sake. For every unmediated natural relationship, knowingly or unknowingly, is an expression of hatred toward Christ, the mediator, especially if this relationship wants to assume a Christian identity.

Theology makes a serious mistake whenever it uses Jesus’ mediation between God and human persons to justify immediate relationships in life. This mistake says, “If Christ is the mediator, then by being so he bore the sins of all our unmediated relationships to the world and justified us in them. Jesus is our mediator with God, so that with a clean conscience we can again relate directly to the world, to the world which crucified Christ.” That brings love of God and love of the world down to a common denominator. The break with the given circumstances of the world is presented here as a “legalistic” misunderstanding of God’s grace, which is said to spare us from precisely such a break. Jesus’ words on hatred toward what is unmediated now are twisted into an obvious, joyful Yes to the “God-given realities” of this world. The justification of the sinner again[9] turns into the justification of the sin.[1]

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 94–95.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

The Story of My Life - Purity 842


 

The Story of My Life  - Purity 842

Purity 842 09/21/2022  

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a dusky but multi-hued sunset somewhere along River Road in Easton NY comes to us, I believe, from my wife and Christian podcaster, TammyLyn Clark, who captured this scene three days after our wedding back on January 4th of this year. 

After a hiatus of a few months, TammyLyn released the 24th episode of her Ask, Seek, Knock Podcast yesterday, declaring “I’m back” in which she explained the course of her life since her last episode.  I am sharing the link on the blog today, https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-5qznz-12cadef if you would like to give it a listen. No spoilers of course, but I was impressed and feel that it is provides another piece of evidence demonstrating TammyLyn’s faith and the reason why I simply had to make her my wife. 

You have to forgive me but this morning I have the song “The Story of My Life” by the defunk boyband, One Direction, in my head, and have to expel it! The lyrics say:

“Written in these walls are the stories that I can't explain
I leave my heart open but it stays right here empty for days
She told me in the morning she don't feel the same about us in her bones
It seems to me that when I die, these words will be written on my stone

And I'll be gone, gone tonight
The ground beneath my feet is open wide
The way that I been holdin' on too tight
With nothin' in between

The story of my life, I take her home
I drive all night to keep her warm
And time is frozen (the story of, the story of)
The story of my life, I give her hope
I spend her love until she's broke inside
The story of my life (the story of, the story of)”

(https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/onedirection/storyofmylife.html)

 

And it goes on… Pretty deep for a boy band right? Anyway this song about the cycles of love and break up, with its timeless – frozen -  moments of bliss and the sadness when love runs its course, came up in my memory this morning, not because I am lamenting over my love life, but because I was just overcome with the sense of sheer amazement over all the twists and turns that have transpired over the various chapters and episodes of my life. 

In reflecting over the course of my life and the journey as I grew up and tried to figure out who I was, all the while demanding personal satisfaction to every whim of desire, and the resultant brokenness of disillusionment with the American dream, the pains of addiction and traumatic losses before coming to Christ, and now the rather substantial course of life in the Spirit as I have increasingly surrendered to the upward call of Christ and moved away from all I was to become the person I am now, I thought to myself: 

“Wow! My life could be a miniseries on Netflix!”  

And the more I think about it, I don’t that is vanity.  In terms of drama, we have lived quite the continuing “story arc” with its exposition, rising action, climaxes, falling actions, and resolutions as we have been on this journey of faith, meaning, and purpose for 50 years now!  

As compelling as some of the episodes of my life before Christ may have been with its misadventures, all that action – the romance, the comedy and the tragedy, would have been for nothing.  It would have been like what Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, where with everything falling apart and hearing of his wife’s death, Macbeth says:

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

(Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of Shakespeare (p. 110). Latus ePublishing. Kindle Edition.”). 

And why would it have been like that?  Because I didn’t know the truth. I was operating on limited knowledge and lies that world tells us, like “life is meaningless”.  

But that is not the truth. Our lives have meaning and purpose, but few find it.  

The Creator, God, made us for a reason: to know Him and to make Him known.  

He sent Christ to save us and to “redeem” our lives because they were headed for destruction.  So that’s a climax: Finding Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,  but brother this isn’t a movie or even a Shakespearian play, this is an ongoing saga of life in the Spirit that doesn’t end.  

God has called us from here to eternity and when we know we who are in Christ we know the meaning of our lives and the next thing is to play the part of a Christian, to know and to discover our continuing purpose in Christ.  

Our purpose includes our sanctification and helping others to come to know the Lord and to discover their meaning and purpose in Christ.  

In the 12 years since coming to Christ, there has been ups and downs, victories and losses and whole string of characters as I have followed the Lord’s call.  

Before coming to Christ, I spent a lot of time in a basement, alone,  entertaining myself with alcohol, drugs, video games, music, sports on tv, and movies.  If you did a movie or tv series of my life back then it wouldn’t need a big cast or elaborate sets. You could even do it as a play, like a Shakespearean tragedy, where I could do soliloquy after soliloquy as I pondered life’s meaning, lamented over its disappointments, but found no answers other than to feed myself with circumstantial happiness.  

But the Lord pulled me out of that life of loneliness and despair and has taken me to places I would have never imagined in that basement in the woods and He has introduced me to a multitude of people from all over the world as I have followed Him.  

If anyone ever tells you that the Christian life is boring, I can tell you that they either don’t know the Lord, or they haven’t answered His call to surrender to His will and to follow Him.  

Last night, I told the men in the Freedom in Christ Course that if they want the fruit of the Spirit in their lives or if they want their freedom in Christ there is great hope for them.  But I told them that their faith won’t grow unless they do their part in their relationship with the Lord.  

Last night’s focus verse was

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)
6  But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him
.

From this I pointed out that if they wanted to please the Lord they had to have faith, to believe He is, and that He would reward their efforts to seek Him.  

I encouraged them to build their faith by choosing to believe the truth of God’s word and to apply it to their lives. I encouraged them to read the Bible, to pray, and to join a local body of believers – a church – where they could, learn ,worship, grow, and serve.  

If you want to be rewarded with the fruit of the Spirit in your life, you have to act on your faith and follow where the Lord leads you.  

So let’s start another episode of the ongoing saga, of “Life in the Spirit with _____ (insert your name here) and see what kind of drama develop and unfolds as you keep walking and talking with God.

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NLT2)
13  The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

Today’s Bible verse assures us that the temptations we face are not unique and we can rely on the Lord to escape negative consequences of sin because He will show us a way out.  

Hey another thing I advised the men last night was to turn from their sin. If we want harmony with God and the fruit of the Spirit in our lives we can not rest on the Lord’s forgiveness and “inevitability of sin” and just flounder around in the “sin-confess” cycle, we have to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil to say no to sin and to claim victory as those who have been resurrected to new life with Christ.   

Let’s stop patting ourselves on the back when we fall into sin and instead repent of them. Romans 8:3 tells us we are free from sin, so let’s live it by targeting those problem sins and leaning on the Lord’s strength to over come them and repeat them no more.  This is possible with God but we have to believe it is true and show our belief with the way we live our lives.  

Today’s verse tells us the God will show us away out of our temptations and sins.  But we have to follow Him and look for the way He wants us to go. And if we do that we can endure and have the victory and freedom over sin that has given us. We can the abundant life that Christ came to give us.  

______________________________________________________________________

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Two

The Call to Discipleship - Continued

This brings us already to the middle of the story of the rich young man.

“Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these, what do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (Matt. 19:16–22).

The young man’s question about eternal life is the question of salvation. It is the only really serious question there is. But it is not easy to ask it in the right way. This is made evident by the way the young man, who obviously intends to ask this question, actually asks a quite different one. He even avoids the real question. He addresses his question to the “good master.” He wants to hear the opinion, advice, the judgment of the good master, the great teacher, on the matter. In doing so he reveals two points: First, the question is really important to him, and Jesus should have a meaningful answer to offer. Second, however, he is expecting from the good master and great teacher a significant response, but not a divine order with unconditional authority. For the young man, the question of eternal life is one which he desires to speak of and discuss with a “good master.” But right away Jesus’ answer trips him up. “Why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good except the one God.” The question had already betrayed what was in his heart. He wanted to talk about eternal life with a good rabbi, but what he got to hear was that with his question he was in truth not standing before a good master, but before none other than God. He will not get an answer from the Son of God that would do anything else but clearly refer him to the commandment of the one God. He will not get an answer of a “good master,” who would add his own opinion to the revealed will of God. Jesus directs attention away from himself to the God who alone is good, and in doing so proves himself to be the fully obedient Son of God. But if the questioner is standing directly before God, then he is exposed as one who was fleeing from God’s revealed commandment, which he himself already knew. The young man knew the commandments. But his situation is that he is not satisfied with them; he wants to move beyond them. His question is unmasked as a question of a self-invented and self-chosen piety. Why is the revealed commandment not enough for the young man? Why does he act as if he did not already know the answer to his question? Why does he want to accuse God of leaving him in ignorance in this most decisive question of life? So the young man is already caught and brought to judgment. He is called back from the nonbinding question of salvation to simple obedience to the revealed commandments.

He tries a second attempt to flee. The young man answers with a second question: “Which ones?” Satan himself is hiding in that question. This was the only possible way out for someone who felt himself trapped. Of course the young man knew the commandments, but who should know which commandment is meant just for him, just for right then, out of the full number of commandments? The revelation of the commandment is ambiguous and unclear, says the young man. He is not looking at the commandments. He is instead looking at himself again, his problems, his conflicts. He retreats from God’s clear commandment back to the interesting, indisputably human situation of “ethical conflict.”[31] It is not wrong that he knows about such a conflict, but it is wrong that the conflict is played off against God’s commandments. The commandments are actually given in order to bring ethical conflicts to an end. Ethical conflict is the primordial ethical phenomenon for human beings after the fall. It is the human revolt against God. The serpent in paradise put this conflict into the heart of the first human. “Did God say?” People are torn away from the clear commandment and from simple childlike obedience by ethical doubt, by asserting that the commandment still needs interpretation and explanation. “Did God say?” People are made to decide by the power of their own knowledge of good and evil, by the power of their conscience to know what is good. The commandment is ambiguous; God intends for people to interpret it and decide about it freely.

Even thinking this way is already a refusal to obey the commandment. Double-minded thinking has replaced the simple act. The person of free conscience boasts of being superior to the child of obedience. To invoke ethical conflict is to terminate obedience. It is a retreat from God’s reality to human possibility, from faith to doubt. So the unexpected now happens. The same question with which the young man tried to hide his disobedience now unmasks him for who he is, namely, a person in sin. Jesus’ answer does this. God’s revealed commandments are named. By naming them, Jesus confirms anew that they are, indeed, God’s commandments. The young man is once again caught. He hoped to evade once more and reenter into a nonbinding conversation about eternal questions. He hoped Jesus would offer him a solution to his ethical conflict. But Jesus lays hold, not of the question, but of the person himself. The only answer to the predicament of ethical conflict is God’s commandment itself, which is the demand to stop discussing and start obeying. Only the devil has a solution to offer to ethical conflicts. It is this: keep asking questions, so that you are free from having to obey. Jesus takes aim at the young man himself instead of his problem. The young man took his ethical conflict deadly seriously, but Jesus does not take it seriously at all. He is serious about only one thing, that the young man finally hears and obeys God’s command. When ethical conflict is taken so seriously that it tortures and subjugates people because it hinders their doing the liberating act of obedience, then it is revealed in its full godlessness as complete disobedience in all its insincerity. Only the obedient deed is to be taken seriously. It ends and destroys the conflict and frees us to become children of God. That is the divine diagnosis the young man receives.

The young man is subjected to the truth of God’s word twice. He can no longer avoid God’s commandment. Yes, the commandment is clear and has to be obeyed. But it is not enough! “I have kept all these from my youth, what do I still lack?” With this answer the young man will still be just as convinced of the sincerity of his concern as he was previously. That is precisely what makes him defiant against Jesus. He knows the commandment; he has kept it, but he thinks that it could not be the whole will of God. Something else has to be added, something extraordinary, unique. He desires to do that. God’s revealed commandment is incomplete, the young man says in his final flight away from the true commandment, in his last attempt to retain his autonomy and to decide good and evil on his own. He affirms the commandment, and launches a frontal attack against it at the same time. “I have kept all these, what do I still lack?” Mark adds at this point: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). Jesus recognizes how hopelessly the young man has closed himself off from God’s living word, how his whole being is raging against the living commandment, against simple obedience. He wants to help the young man; he loved him. That is why he gave him one final answer: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me!”[1]

 

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 69–72.

Thursday, September 15, 2022

“Do Well” - Purity 837


“Do Well” - Purity 837

Purity 837 09/15/2022  Purity 837 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo a of breath taking forest scene of a short shoreline path leading to the splendor of the heavens reflected in surface of Lewey Lake comes to us from a friend who is vacationing in the heart of the Adirondacks and shared this photo on social media on Monday.

Well it is Thursday again and our friends photo is so awesome I decided to use my imagination and see that narrow space between those rocks and the grass as a pathway that looks like it could somehow take us into heaven itself like some upside down portal to God’s kingdom.   

I look to share pathways on Thursdays as tradition now to encourage people to get on or stay on the path of Christian discipleship, which is my way of saying we should follow the call and example of Jesus with the way we live.    

Why? Do I have a church? Am I looking for donations? 

No, the reason why I encourage people to follow Christ is because for most of my life I didn’t and I suffered because I lived only to please and affirm myself.  It turns out my wisdom wasn’t very wise and my philosophy of life to “do whatever I want” and to “break rules but not get caught”  lead to a addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and hopelessness.   My decision to build  my life around the things “I like” was doomed to failure in a world that constantly changes and where even the activities and things we love the most can lose their luster and ability to satisfy us over time, and especially when we live independently of God.     

The questions of “why am I here?” Or “what is the meaning of life?” are never satisfactorily answered when we fail to consider God, although people will try.  

“Life is about family”

“Life is about what you do, your work.”

“Life is about having enough to provide for security and fun.” 

“Life is about the people you love.”

While all of these statements have elements of truth and can be a part of a “happy” life on earth, they don’t address eternity and they don’t address the concept of “right and wrong”.

How are we to determine the answers to those questions. What happens after this life? How should I live my life?  

My silly self serving philosophies of life before coming to Christ were all based on things a I had seen others do in the world, either in person, on T.V. or in books.  Those are all worldly wisdom sources and like any good lie that would lead you astray they contain some truth. 

My exposure to religion in my youth introduced me to God and Christ but it seemed like a separate thing, that we visited once in a while, that had good ideas but that weren’t really practical in the “real world”. Christianity seemed just like another option of life that I could consider and choose to accept or reject and because it’s commandments seemed to limit my freedom from things “I wanted to do!”, I decided that it was better to believe it was not true rather than to consider the consequences of living outside of obedience to it’s “rules.” 

But as I stated turning away from God did nothing to give me peace, meaning, or purpose.   Without Him everything was debatable and with God nothing really mattered.   In the atheistic worldview that I held, there was no life after death. There were no rules other than those society instituted to control us and there was no “justice” because people literally would get away with murder and get rich from criminal means.   

Thankfully God revealed Himself to me, and to all of us with His word and in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.  

When I heard the gospel message that saved my life, all those perplexing questions of life, meaning, purpose and debates about how to live were answered.  

Why are we here? God made the heavens and the earth and made man in His image to have dominion over it. 

What happens to us after death?  God is waiting in eternity to meet us and He will accept those who put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior into His kingdom.

How should we live?  According to the word of God and the example of Christ.  

What’s right? What’s wrong?  God’s word teaches us that and when we fail to follow it we suffer the consequences.  

From these questions and answers, you could condemn yourself because you could see the implications that if you fail to make Christ your Lord and Savior and live according to God’s word that will be punished and you might not think that is fair, like I did, so you will make up your own rules and make your own “gospel” about what happens in eternity or adopted some worldly or other religion that is more palatable.   

But instead of being angry or afraid of God because of the possibility that we won’t believe or follow Him, I invite people to discover what happens when we do believe what the word of God says, when we do put our faith in Christ, and when we do try to live in God’s ways.   

I was so busy rebelling against God and any authority, really, that I never stopped to consider what would happen if I did believe, or I did obey.  

In Genesis 4:6-7 (NKJV) God said to Cain:
6  … "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."

 It took me most of my life and a radical encounter with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I have come to know that I was busy “not doing well” and subsequently “sin” ruled over me.  Instead of turning from it, I turned to sin again and again and suffered greatly.  

But by the grace of God, the Lord showed me that if simply followed Him He would take away my guilt, my shame, my pain and in it’s place give me peace, love, and the joy that comes from knowing that this life has a meaning and a purpose that is defined and established by God and by choosing to live by it and for it.   

I’m still a work in progress because I am continuing to discover that the simple injunction to “do well” by God applies to every area of my life.   That could seem daunting but as I have walked with Him since 2010 I discovered that His all encompassing command to “do well” when obeyed results in blessings and peace.  

So keep walking and talking with God.  If you don’t have peace, consider surrendering your will for His. Consider making the daily decision to stop living according to your own philosophies and choose to “do well” by living with God and by living the way He would have you go.  

 

----------------------------------------

 

Well once again I spent some time this morning preparing for tonight’s presentation for the Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Course I am doing on Zoom for the mt4Christ247 podcast and the MT4Christ247 YouTube channel and, so my time is limited again and we will skip the verse of the day for today but hope to share one  from  “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men” again tomorrow.

_____________________________________________________________________

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Two

The Call to Discipleship

As Jesus was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him” (Mark 2:14).

The call goes out, and without any further ado the obedient deed of the one called follows. The disciple’s answer is not a spoken confession of faith in Jesus. Instead, it is the obedient deed. How is this direct relation between call and obedience possible? It is quite offensive to natural reason. Reason is impelled to reject the abruptness of the response. It seeks something to mediate it; it seeks an explanation. No matter what, some sort of mediation has to be found, psychological or historical. Some have asked the foolish question whether the tax collector had known Jesus previously and therefore was prepared to follow his call. But the text is stubbornly silent on this point; in it, everything depends on call and deed directly facing each other. The text is not interested in psychological explanations for the faithful decisions of a person. Why not? Because there is only one good reason for the proximity of call and deed: Jesus Christ himself. It is he who calls. That is why the tax collector follows. This encounter gives witness to Jesus’ unconditional, immediate, and inexplicable authority. Nothing precedes it, and nothing follows except the obedience of the called. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has authority to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus calls to discipleship, not as a teacher and a role model, but as the Christ, the Son of God. Thus, in this short text Jesus Christ and his claim on people are proclaimed, and nothing else. No praise falls on the disciple or on his espoused Christianity. Attention should not fall to him, but only to the one who calls, to his authority. Not even a path to faith, to discipleship, is aimed at; there is no other path to faith than obedience to Jesus’ call.

What is said about the content of discipleship? Follow me, walk behind me! That is all. Going after him is something without specific content. It is truly not a program for one’s life which would be sensible to implement. It is neither a goal nor an ideal to be sought. It is not even a matter for which, according to human inclination, it would be worth investing anything at all, much less oneself. And what happens? Those called leave everything they have, not in order to do something valuable. Instead, they do it simply for the sake of the call itself, because otherwise they could not walk behind Jesus. Nothing of importance is attached to this action in itself. It remains something completely insignificant, unworthy of notice. The bridges are torn down, and the followers simply move ahead. They are called away and are supposed to “step out” of their previous existence, they are supposed to “exist” in the strict sense of the word. Former things are left behind; they are completely given up. The disciple is thrown out of the relative security of life into complete insecurity (which in truth is absolute security and protection in community with Jesus); out of the foreseeable and calculable realm (which in truth is unreliable) into the completely unforeseeable, coincidental realm (which in truth is the only necessary and reliable one); out of the realm of limited possibilities (which in truth is that of unlimited possibilities) into the realm of unlimited possibilities (which in truth is the only liberating reality). Yet that is not a general law; it is, rather, the exact opposite of all legalism. Again, it is nothing other than being bound to Jesus Christ alone. This means completely breaking through anything preprogrammed, idealistic, or legalistic. No further content is possible because Jesus is the only content. There is no other content besides Jesus. He himself is it.

So the call to discipleship is a commitment solely to the person of Jesus Christ, a breaking through of all legalisms by the grace of him who calls. It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment. It is beyond enmity between law and gospel. Christ calls; the disciple follows. That is grace and commandment in one. “I walk joyfully, for I seek your commands” (Ps. 119:45).

Discipleship is commitment to Christ. Because Christ exists, he must be followed. An idea about Christ, a doctrinal system, a general religious recognition of grace or forgiveness of sins does not require discipleship. In truth, it even excludes discipleship; it is inimical to it. One enters into a relationship with an idea by way of knowledge, enthusiasm, perhaps even by carrying it out, but never by personal obedient discipleship. Christianity without the living Jesus Christ remains necessarily a Christianity without discipleship; and a Christianity without discipleship is always a Christianity without Jesus Christ. It is an idea, a myth. A Christianity in which there is only God the Father, but not Christ as a living Son actually cancels discipleship. In that case there will be trust in God, but not discipleship. God’s Son became human, he is the mediator—that is why discipleship is the right relation to him. Discipleship is bound to the mediator, and wherever discipleship is rightly spoken of, there the mediator, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is intended. Only the mediator, the God-human, can call to discipleship.[1]

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 57–59.